Last friday me and Juha got to play our first game with the new book. After a surprisingly long session on setting up the scenario and playing round 0, the game went on smoothly.

My 18fps Muscovites were to defend a crossing against Juha's rampaging 22fps Ottomans.I placed the Streltsy with one 1,5pdr falconet behind fortifications as a bridgehead with their commanding officer Captain Liebling, who decided to place his headquarters on the other side of the river. What a coward! Then I managed to completely fumble the deployment and order of the vanguard leaving my field dragoons in completely useless situation with a defend order! I've got no idea how that happened, but I'm blaming Cpt Liebling for it.Juha deployed his Besli so that he could threaten and harras the flank of my Streltsy with arrows.As you can see from the state of the river: it must have been a laundry day in the Muscovite garrison.

Then the main forces were deployed. I placed my border dragoons to the left flank with one squadron of boyar sons. Also Golova Abumakov was there to take command of the flank. On the right flank was another squadron of boyar sons with the Elite Dvorians. Voivode Melenkov was also there. In the center of the table was my second 1,5pdr gun and the Skirmish sotnia and on the hill controlling the view was the dreaded 5pdr gun and teh border dragoons with spears to guard it.Juha Deployed a strong force of cavalry to my right, azabs and some more cavalry to the center and some janissaries to my left. The Silahdar were delayed.

As my tactic for the one remaining fsp I had to choose the preliminary bombardment as it seemed like a Muscovite thing to do. Perhaps for that reason it didn't do anything. All the town artillerymen missed their targets.

On turns 1-2 we were arranging our armies to better attack positions and giving so fire. I managed to inflict a couple of hits with my cannon and musket and Juha managed to hit me with his arrows. A fun bit was Cpt Liebling who failed to reorganize the Strelty. Maybe it was because he was shouting from the other bank or that he could only speak german or the Stretsy ingnored the screaming German dandy with his modern ideas of warfare. Voivode Melenkov had personally rearrange the badly deployed field dragoons. Damn that Liebling!

On the third turn My elite Dvorians charged through the double-wide ford to buy more time for the skirmish sotnia and boyar sons that were coming from the other side of the table. Maybe Voivode Melenkov had misunderstood the Tzar’s hint how to make him happy, as he was happy to sacrifice the whole elite sotnia. Also the situation might have been somkind of Muscovite intrigue to get rid of rivals. The elite sotnia had a peasant guide with them to go across the ford with little effort. Still it was an Ottoman death trap. Surprisingly they managed to get a draw out of the first charge.A turn later the elite Dvorians were massacred as they were contacted on two sides with their backs against the fouls smelling river and the guide were nowhere to be seen. Voivode Melenkov celebrated his cunning plan to get rid of rivals with a mouthful of warm vodka.Same time to add to an insult Golova Abumakov led his relief force of boyar sons past cursing Captain Liebling. The Golova shouted something in russia to the Streltsy, perhaps some insult against Liebling. The Streltsy reorganized themselves right away.

The sacrifice of the noble Dvorians paid of as the boayr sons managed to organize an effective defence of the ford their sheer numbers forcing the Ottoman to retreat.

By the turn six Golova Abumakov’s relief force was near the ford and so it was clear tahat the Ottamans couldn’t press trough.Same time the noble Streltsy, still ingnoring Cpt Liebling, fought on chopping wawes of azabs, janissaries and an occasional deli and besli to pieces with their heavy axes.

Game ended with Muscovites holding the bridge and the ford and there still was a bridgehead of Streltsy on the other side of the river. Althought the crew of the 1,5pdr gun was lost to Ottoman counterbattery bow fire.

All in all the game lasted for five hours. We need to play more to speed up the deployment and round 5. We really liked the little tweaks made to the rules after beta version. Task Force is FUN!

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